The land that is now the Mordecai CAC was all part of the Mordecai family land, which also went further east, including the Oakwood Cemetery, and further north, to Crabtree Creek. The Mordecai house actually predates the Mordecai family. The original part of it was built in 1785 by Joel Lane. Joel Lane was a senator, who also owned the land that the original City of Raleigh was laid out in 1792. Joel Lane’s granddaughters (first Margaret, then Anne) married Moses Mordecai, a Jewish lawyer and judge. The Lanes were Episcopalian, so Moses Mordecai converted to Christianity and changed the pronunciation of his name to MordeKEE, to signify the Christian branch of the family. Moses’ widow Anne Mordecai enlarged the house in 1826 to its present Greek Revival form. The Mordecai family lived in the house until 1967, when they sold it to the City.

By the time of the Civil War, this area was still out in the country; the northern city limit of Raleigh was along N. Boundary St. The only thing here was the Mordecai house & outbuildings, and the Raleigh & Gaston RR, built in 1840, which later became the Seaboard RR (1900) and is now the CSX. And Peace Institute’s Main Building. It was built right before the war, from 1859 to 61, but before it could be used as a college, the war broke out and the building was commandeered by the Confederate government to serve as a hospital for soldiers. Peace Institute didn’t actually open until 1872.

 During the Civil War, in 1863, the people of Raleigh petitioned Governor Zeb Vance to build fortifications around the City in case of Yankee invasion. Vance ordered a system of breastworks to be thrown up. The breastworks came right through this area. They were mostly built by slave labor. A breastwork is basically a long mound with a trench behind it. It was called a breastwork because a man was supposed to be able to stand behind it and be shielded as high as his breast. It is hard to find evidence of the breastworks now, except for the gun emplacements. Every mile or so on the breastworks was a big mound with a higher breastwork, to put cannons on. One of them was where Shane Trahan’s house is, at the corner of Mordecai Dr., Poplar and Courtland. Another is at the corner of Glascock and Watauga. Another was in what is now Capital Park, but it was totally flattened.

The Yankees did invade Raleigh, but it was at the end of the war, April 13, 1865, four days after Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, so the City just surrendered itself and there was no fighting. But Sherman’s army did camp all around these woods.

After the war, the town of Raleigh started to grow out to this area. The Mordecai family started selling off pieces of land for development. First came a few houses in the northern part of Oakwood. The house at the corner of Peace & Blount around 1870. Geranium Valley 1875. Fort House 1877, Briggs-Argo-Aycock House 1881. Then came several big houses along Wake Forest Road, which was called Louisburg Rd. The most notable is Norburn Terrace, the big brick Queen Anne house on Lafayette Dr. It was started in the 1880s and not finished until 1898. The architect was Adolphus Gustavus Bauer, who designed the Governor’s Mansion and other important buildings in town.

 Oakdale was the first development platted within the Mordecai CAC. Platted means the streets were laid out and the lots were created. The plat map of Oakdale is dated 1891. But most of the houses weren’t built until the 1920s and into the 1930s & 1940s. Franklin, Holden and Sasser were called Oakdale, Holt & Porter, and Watauga was called N. Swain St.

 The first development actually BUILT was Pilot Mill Hill, the houses for the workers in the Pilot Cotton Mill on Cedar St. The main buildings of the Pilot Cotton Mill were built in 1892, 1903 and 1910. The houses were built from 1894 to 1905. It was at the end of Blount St., the end of Harp St., which was Harp’s Lane, and the end of Haynes St., which was called N. Wilmington St. There were 68 simple little three or four-room wooden houses, with no bathrooms, all owned by Pilot Cotton Mill. And there was a Pilot Mill School, a Pilot Mill Baptist Church, and a Pilot Mill Store. Later the current Gothic Pilot Baptist Church was built in 1917 and the Barbee School on N. Blount St., which is now Hope Elementary, was built in 1924. There were about 300 mill workers, and they worked eleven hours a day, six days a week.

 Then the next development to be built was Mordecai Place, which was the western side of Wake Forest Rd., Mordecai Dr. (called for a while Albert St.), Courtland (called Hinton St.), Marshall (called N. Person St.), these were named for Mordecai family members, and all the streets named after the trees on the Mordecai farm. But Mimosa was Walnut and Delway was Pine. Mordecai Place was platted in 1922. The lots were sold and the houses were built by the new owners in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Mordecai Place was developed by Dan Allen, who also developed Cameron Park, and featured the newly fashionable curvilinear street pattern. Some of the new residents were business people. Quite a few worked for the railroad. And these were considered very desirable jobs. Because of the Union, the railroad paid much more than the cotton mill, or any other blue collar job.

 About the same time the homes in Mordecai Place were being built, homes began to line Glascock and Frank and Harding Sts., and also the streets of Oakdale.

Also in the 20s and 30s we got the first few businesses on N. Person St., starting with the gas station at the corner of N. Person & Pace St. The Mary Elizabeth Hospital was built in 1920 on Wake Forest Rd. That’s the pretty brick bldg at the corner of Glascock. The Seaboard Railway Station was built in 1942. Trinity Methodist Church on the corner of Bloodworth & Sasser was built in 1942.

 The next residential development was Lafayette, the Cape Cod cottages north of Glascock originally sided in wood. Some were probably sided in wooden shingles. Lafayette was platted in 1938 and the houses were built throughout the 40s.

 The next development was Brookview. The tiny houses on Virginia, the north side of Sasser, Watauga and Norris. It was built right after WWII for the returning veterans and their wives, so they didn’t have to move in with their parents. It was the first development by Willie York, who later developed Cameron Village and other developments in West Raleigh.

 The next development was Halifax Court Housing Project, built by the Feds and the City in 1947. It was considered a wonderful place, because it had central heat and indoor plumbing and it was clean and new.

 Then came Meadowbrook, the brick cottages north of Lafayette, on Watauga and Clifton and Norris. These were built in the early 1950s.

 In 1953, Temple Baptist Church was built on Wake Forest Rd. In 1955 or 1956, we got a big new Piggly Wiggly grocery on N. Person St. at the corner of Franklin St.; it later became a Winn Dixie. So by 1956, the area was all built out and everything was peachy for a while.

 Then came a bit of a decline. By the 60s and 70s some of the area got a little dilapidated. Some of the bigger houses became rooming houses. The Briggs-Argo-Aycock house on Bloodworth St. became a whorehouse, then a Baptist Church. The reason the name of Courtland St. was changed from Hinton to Courtland was the bad reputation Hinton had from the liquor houses, which were the brick bungalows on the west side of the north end of Courtland.

 The Mary Elizabeth Hospital closed in 1978 and the staff moved out to Raleigh Community Hospital. The Barbee School closed some time in the 70s. The Pilot Mill closed in 1982. The Mill village had became a really rough dilapidated area. The houses were torn down in the mid 1980s. The train station closed. Halifax Court gradually got rougher. By the 1980s it was considered one of the most dangerous areas in Raleigh. It was an open-air drug market; cops got shot over there several times.

 And then came the great Renaissance.

 Loving homeowners rediscovered the charm of the old houses.

 Logan’s moved into the old Seaboard Station in 1991.

 Mordecai Place was named a National Register Historic District in 1998.

 Halifax Court was demolished in 2000, and Capital Park was built on the location in 2002-2003.

 At the same time, the Village at Pilot Mill was built on what had been Pilot Mill Hill.